User:Wicoulte/University Courts Historic District

The University Courts Historic District is a historic district and neighborhood in Bloomington, Indiana, United States. It was developed between 1906 and 1938 and features buildings in many romantic revival styles of the era, limestone and brick retaining walls and Bloomington's only remaining streets paved with blocks. The neighborhood harmoniously blends institutional buildings, single family housing, duplexes, and apartments, all on a residential scale. Buildings in the district are substantial and generally constructed of brick or limestone with slate or clay tile roofs. Several buildings were designed by Bloomington architect John Nichols, including an excellent example of a Mission style bungalow. Bloomington’s only true Prairie style house, designed by English born architect Alfred Grindle, is also located in the district.

The neighborhood’s early inhabitants were a unique combination of Bloomington’s business and political leaders, Indiana University faculty and administrators and members of Greek letter organizations. The brothers who co-owned the Johnson Creamery both built houses in the neighborhood, as did William Hoadley, limestone company executive. Stith Thompson, eminent professor of folklore, lived on Fess along with William Book, a psychologist and Everett Dean, NCAA championship winning basketball coach. At one time, four buildings specifically built for Greek letter organizations were located in the district, and several other houses in the neighborhood have served as home for fraternities or sororities.

Construction
The land upon which the University Courts Historic District is built was part of a quarter section inherited by Moses Fell Dunn in 1857. He platted part of the parcel as Dunn’s Addition to the city of Bloomington in 1873. Shortly after the Science Building burned on the Seminary campus at Second and College in 1883, Dunn sold another part of the tract to Indiana University. The University built Wylie and Owen Halls on the parcel and located there in 1884. This changed the center of gravity of the town from South College Avenue to East Kirkwood Avenue, and development moved eastward. Dunn sold another piece of the inherited quarter section to Elvet and Cora Rhodes in 1910. The Rhodeses and the German American Trust Company platted the First University Courts Addition in 1910, which includes the area bounded by Indiana Avenue, Tenth Street, Fess Avenue and Seventh Street except for the original site of the Sigma Chi house at Seventh and Indiana, which was built in 1906.

Thomas J. and Nettie Sare bought all remaining unsold lots and the unplatted part of the parcel from the Rhodeses and the Trust Company in 1913 and platted the remaining three additions. The Sares then sold their interest to University Courts Realty Company. Indiana University bought the complete Fourth University Courts Addition, most of which is now part of a soccer field. The other three additions are now known as the University Courts neighborhood.

Builders and Residents
One of the first builders and residents of the area was Louis W. Hughes of the Hughes Brothers lumberyard and construction company, a family business begun in 1880. Hughes lived in three different houses in the neighborhood: 703 East Seventh Street, 710-712 East Ninth Street and 715 East Seventh. He is known to have built the two houses on Seventh Street.

Thomas J. Sare attorney, Indiana University School of Law graduate, state legislator in 1915, partner in Sare-Hoadley Stone and University Courts Realty Company built three projects in the district: 705 East Seventh, the Sare Duplexes at Eighth Street and Park Avenue, and 719 East Seventh.

Other prominent residents included Circuit Judge James B. Wilson and wife Maude Showers Wilson; William B. Hoadley, lawyer, state senator, and his wife Lucille Hughes Hoadley daughter of Louis Hughes; Joseph H. Campbell, mayor of Bloomington and his wife Ida; Herman Bowman, Bowman-King Stone and Bowman-Schwab Stone companies and his wife Elizabeth; Beatrice Geiger, Professor of Chemistry, Agnes Wells, Dean of Women, Paul V. McNutt, Dean of the Law School and later Governor of Indiana, and his wife Katherine.

Architects
Several architects are known to have worked in the district. John Lincoln Nichols (1859-1929) was a native Bloomington architect who learned the trade from his father Hiram J. Nichols, a builder/architect. Nichols spent the early part of his life in Bloomington working with his father. He went west in 1885, working for about seven at years at F. E. Edbrooke and Company in Denver as a draftsman, supervising architect and heating and ventilation engineer. The Panic of 1893 made work scarce, and he was itinerant for a time, including work in San Francisco as a supervising architect with Pissis & Moore during the construction of The Emporium on Market Street. In 1895 he returned to Bloomington and started practice as J. L. Nichols, Architect. From 1905 to 1911 he and his son Bridge Nichols practiced together as Nichols & Son. From 1913 to 1915 John and his brother Leo Morton Nichols were in business together as Nichols & Nichols. After Nichols & Nichols dissolved John continued his practice alone almost until his death in 1929. A few of Nichols many projects are the Fraternity Building, First National Bank and the Vance Music Building on the courthouse square, the Oddfellows Building on East Kirkwood Avenue, the Myers-Showers House (321 N. Washington St.), the Showers-Graham House (430 N. Washington St.) and the Kirkwood Observatory on the Indiana University campus.

Alfred Grindle (1863-1940) was a native of Manchester, England who studied architecture and art there before migrating to the United States in 1888. He worked as a draftsman at Fuller & Wheeler in Albany, New York before moving to Fort Wayne, Indiana in 1890. Wing & Mahurin employed him as a draftsman through 1894, when he began practice as an architect. He maintained branch offices in Muncie, Indiana and Indianapolis, eventually moving to Brown County, Indiana during the First World War. In 1920 he opened an office in Bloomington. In Bloomington, Grindle designed Trinity Episcopal Church, Elm Heights School, the Marion Rogers Residence, the Curry Building and Irwin Matthews Residence, among others.

Edwin C. Doeppers (1883-1970) was a first generation American of German descent who was born in Indianapolis. He registered as an engineer when Indiana’s architects and engineers registration law first took effect, but is listed as architect for many Bloomington construction projects in the 1910’s and 1920’s. Doeppers & Myers, a partnership with Clarence Myers, had offices in Bloomington and Indianapolis from 1913 to 1914. Doeppers then did business as Edwin C. Doeppers & Company. Doeppers moved to Bloomington in 1915 but returned to Indianapolis no later than 1918 when he was working in the City Engineer’s office. Early in the 1920’s several notices in the construction press listed him as architect with his address shown as the City Engineer’s office. Richard C. Lennox reported an American Institute of Architects survey that he was a partner in Lennox and Doeppers from 1926 to 1929. In Bloomington, Doeppers designed the Banneker School, the Oscar Williams Residence (609 S. Fess), and several other residences.

Burns & James was an Indianapolis architectural firm whose partners where Lee V. Burns (1872-1957) and Edward D. James (1897-1969). The partnership began in 1926 and continued into 1949. Although Burns initially developed contacts that lead to the firm’s activities in Bloomington, James designed the projects that were developed there. The firm was responsible for the following university dormitories: Sycamore, Morrison and Goodbody Halls in Wells Quad, Cravens and Edmonson Halls in Ashton Living Learning Center and all of Wright Quadrangle. In addition to the two Greek houses in University Courts, James also designed Pi Beta Phi on Third Street. James also did several residences in Bloomington, including the Hays Buskirk Residence (529 S. Hawthorne), the Leible Residence (515 S. Hawthorne) and the Letzinger Residence (721 S. Ballantine) in Elm Heights.

Bloomington native J. Carlisle Bollenbacher (1884-1939) and Elmo Cameron Lowe (1876-1939) formed a partnership in Chicago in 1910. Both men were graduates of the architecture program at the Boston Technical School, as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was known prior to 1916. In the early years of the firm Bollenbacher split his time between Chicago and Bloomington, staying at the family home at 645 North College when in Bloomington. In Bloomington, The Varsity Pharmacy, the Stanford Teter Residence (528 N. Walnut St.), Memorial Hall, First Christian Church and Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority were all designed by Lowe & Bollenbacher. In 1924 Hoyt Granger joined the firm and it was renamed Granger, Lowe & Bollenbacher. In 1925 Lowe left to open an independent office and the firm continued as Granger & Bollenbacher. During this period the firm designed the Administration Building (Bryan Hall) and the Indiana Memorial Union on the Indiana University campus.

Merritt Harrison (1886-1973) was a native of Richmond, Indiana who studied architecture at Cornell University. He worked in the office of Herbert L. Bass in Indianapolis before starting his own practice there in 1916. He retired in 1971 after a prolific career. The only other substantiated project for Harrison in Bloomington was the Morris Residence at 902 E. Third Street, which is no longer standing.

Architecture
University Courts Historic District harmoniously blends institutional buildings, single family dwellings, duplexes and small apartment buildings on a residential scale. The major architectural styles are Colonial Revival, Georgian Revival, Tudor Revival, Mission/Spanish Colonial Revival and Bungalow/Craftsman. There is also one Prairie style house, and other houses that include Prairie style elements. The building materials used in the district are rich and varied; brick and limestone predominate. Bloomington’s only remaining streets paved with blocks are located in the district. Most houses sit high above the street behind limestone or brick retaining walls or grassy banks. The integrity of the structures over time has generally remained solid.

Single Family Housing
There were seventy seven contributing buildings at the time of nomination. One, Delta Zeta sorority, was demolished in 2008. Most are single family dwellings, and most of the dwellings are brick veneer or limestone veneer houses. The most elaborate of these includes the house at 703 East Seventh Street. It was built by Louis Hughes, a partner in Hughes Brothers, a construction firm and building materials supplier. Built in about 1915, this Craftsman style house features a three story tower, sun room with colonnade, rock faced local limestone, exposed rafter tails and multi-paned casement windows. The interior once included an atrium with a fountain. Initially occupied by Hughes, the house was later home to Alpha Omicron Pi sorority for many years.

William Hoadley built the limestone veneer house at 513 North Park Avenue in 1926. Large front facing gables, Tudor arched doorway and multi-paned casement windows are included among the Tudor Revival elements of the house. The house was home to Zeta Beta Tau and Alpha Sigma Phi in the 1960’s and 1970’ respectively.

Louis Hughes built another house in the neighborhood in about 1925, again using limestone veneer. The steep pitched roof and multiple gables of the house at 715 East Seventh Street indicate the Tudor Revival style, but the eave brackets, fan light over the transom and multi paned window sash show Craftsman influence.

Wyatt W. Wicks of the Wicks Company department store built the house at 422 North Indiana Avenue in 1912. Plans drawn by the Chicago firm of Lowe & Bollenbacher include Dutch Colonial elements such as a gambrel roof and Craftsman elements such as rock faced limestone, oversized eave brackets, multi-paned sash and exposed rafter tails on the porches. Carlisle Bollenbacher, an original partner in Lowe & Bollenbacher, was a native of Bloomington and graduate of Indiana University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. John Nichols, another native Bloomington architect, supervised construction of Wicks’ residence. Most single family houses in the district are built with brick veneer including an excellent example of a Mission Revival Style bungalow at 705 East Eighth Street. Thomas Sare, an attorney who platted three of the four University Courts additions to the city of Bloomington, hired John Nichols to build this house in 1911. The house combines Craftsman style exposed rafter tails, two-toned brown tapestry brick and a basic bungalow form with a Spanish Colonial style curvilinear gable with limestone vigas.

The Ellis Johnson House at 501 North Park Avenue is a more straightforward example of the Craftsman style. Built in 1922, it includes the typical features of a front dormer bungalow: knee braces, exposed rafter tails, multi-paned sash and a wide front porch supported by large corner piers.

Johnson’s father Charles built a similar house at 804 East Eight Street that shares many features including exposed rafter tails, multi-paned sash and red brick. A steeply pitched a roof distinguishes the Eight Street house as Tudor Revival.

The most frequent style among the red brick homes in the district is Colonial Revival or Georgian Revival. These display elements typical of the style such as cornices with modillions, entrance porticos, multi-paned sash and end gable returns. Some brick homes are done in Craftsman/Foursquare style. The brick house at 825 East Eighth Street includes wide overhanging eaves, grouped narrow windows and a horizontal orientation typical of the Prairie style. This perhaps reflects the Minnesota origins of the original owner, Indiana University football coach Ewald O. Stiehm.

There are also some wood frame houses in the district. Styles include Colonial Revival and Craftsman/Foursquare.

Multi-family housing
The district also includes multi-family housing with the same scale, massing, materials, and styles as the single family dwellings. Most of this housing is in the form of duplexes. Two varieties are present: the side by side duplex and the one over one duplex. The side by side duplex is more common. Two excellent examples are the Schuman duplexes at Eighth and Fess and the Feltus duplexes at Eight and Park. Both include two duplexes for a total of four units. Both were built on a corner lot, giving adequate access to the street for two structures. The Schuman duplexes were built by newspaper editor John T. Schuman in 1916. Edwin C. Doeppers was architect for the project. Both are in the Tudor revival style with Craftsman influences, but their floor plans vary. The Feltus duplexes were originally built by Thomas Sare. They are identical brick and stucco Craftsman style duplexes.

Two more excellent examples of side by side duplexes are located at 506-508 and 510-512 North Fess Avenue. These Colonial Revival style brick duplexes are clustered around a central courtyard along with a materially and stylistically similar single family house at 502 North Fess Avenue. The limestone veneer Bowman duplex at 718-720 East Eight Street is an example of a one over one duplex. It was built in 1924 by Herman Bowman of the Bowman Schwab limestone mill. Bowman also built the bungalow at 712 East Eighth, engaging John Nichols for both projects.

Alfred Grindle designed the American Colonial brick one over one duplex for Allen Buskirk at 309-311 North Park. Buskirk’s mother, the widow of Lawrence V. Buskirk, Bloomington mayor, postmaster and businessman, lived there for a time.

The district also contains the Harlos apartments at 509-513 North Fess and 515 North Fess. Contoured parapets, clay tile roof elements and multi-paned steel casement windows mark these buildings as Spanish Colonial style.

The district includes a small limestone veneer church. University Lutheran Church at 607 East Seventh Street was dedicated in 1932. Parapet gable ends, buttresses and a crenellated bell tower are all elements of the Gothic Revival style, but the church also displays Tudor revival influence in the half timbering on its entrance and on the attached parsonage.

Greek Houses
The district once contained four buildings specifically designed for Greek letter organizations; three are still standing. Built in 1906, the Sigma Chi house at 601 E. Seventh Street was the first building built in the district, predating the platting of the neighborhood by five years. It is the oldest surviving building in Bloomington built specifically for use as a Greek house. Originally designed by John L. Nichols in the Free Classic style, it was enlarged in 1925 by Granger, Lowe & Bollenbacher in a manner sympathetic to the original design. It was again enlarged in 1954, this time refashioned in Georgian Revival style. Kappa Alpha Theta at 441 North Woodburn Avenue is a Tudor Revival, limestone veneer house with slate roof, steeply pitched roof, multiple gables and a crenellated parapet. It was designed by Burns & James and built by general contractor Charles A. Pike.

The northeast corner of Indiana Avenue and Eighth Street was originally the site of a Tudor Revival house built by Maude Showers. Situated on three lots and designed by Carlisle Bollenbacher, the house was sold to Delta Tau Delta and used for a fraternity until destroyed by fire in February of 1935. The fraternity rebuilt on the same site. The new house was designed by Burns & James and retained the same placement on the three lots as the original house. The general contractor was Charles A. Pike. The Georgian Revival elements of the house include brick veneer with limestone quoins, limestone door and window surrounds, slate tile roof, a two story in antis portico, attic dormers and a limestone entrance portico.

Delta Zeta at 809 East Seventh Street was designed by John Nichols in 1923 in the Classical Revival Style. The general contractor was Charles F. Johnson. The building was last used for university office space before being demolished in 2008 to clear a site for Indiana University’s Hutton Honors College.

Demolished Houses
Before the district was first nominated for the National Register, four houses on the east half of the block bounded by Indiana Avenue, Fess Avenue, Eighth Street and Ninth Street were demolished. Joseph Smith of the Showers Brothers furniture factory engaged John Nichols to build a two story brick Colonial Revival house at 403 North Fess in 1914. J. Neill was the general contractor. Clarence Neill, general contractor, built a house for Charles F. Johnson at 421 North Fess in 1916. Edwin C. Doeppers and Company were the architects. Indiana University’s Mathers Museum of World Cultures and the Glen Black Laboratory of Archeology now occupy those two lots, among others.

Historic assessment
An effort was begun to nominate the district for the National register in 1991. The nomination cited the exemplary architecture of the district and the innovative nature of its planning and development in the course of Bloomington’s history. The nomination was opposed by Indiana University on the grounds that University expansion had been planned in the area since 1944. As a public institution the University was not eligible to vote on the designation. A vote of private property owners in the district was decided by one vote, those opposed to the district being in the majority. Rather than placing the district on the National Register, the Indiana Historic Preservation Review Board instead designated the district eligible for the National Register, which requires federal review of any development using federal funds and state review of any project using state funds, and prevents the use of eminent domain for redevelopment by any public institution. The district was nominated again in 2007 and added to the register in 2008, making a 10% tax credit available for certified restorations of income producing properties.

Table of contributing properties
Appearing in the table below are the buildings included within the boundaries of the city-designated historic district.